Regardless of the staggering dimensions of the world about us, the density of our ignorance, the risks of catastrophes to come, and our individual weakness within the immense collectivity, the fact remains that we are absolutely free today if we choose to will our existence in its finiteness, a finiteness which is open on the infinite. And in fact, any man who has known real loves, real revolts, real desires, and real will knows quite well that he has no need of any outside guarantee to be sure of his goals; their certitude comes from his own drive.

Beauvoir herself was deeply religious as a child —- at one point intending to become a nun -— until Simone de Beauvoir experienced a crisis of faith at age 14 after which Simone de Beauvoir remained an atheist for the rest of her life. Debates rage on about the extent to which they influenced each other in their existentialist works such as Sartre's Being and Nothingness and Beauvoir's She Came to Stay. Beauvoir used Les Temps Modernes to promote her own work and explore her ideas on a small scale before fashioning essays and books.

"La Beauvoir" redirects here; also see: Beauvoir (disambiguation). She is best known for her novels including She Came to Stay and The Mandarins as well as her 1949 treatise The Second Sex a detailed analysis of women's oppression and a foundational tract of contemporary feminism. Beauvoir wrote novels essays biographies an autobiography monographs on philosophy politics and social issues.